Monday, December 24, 2012

Cameroonian Christmas

So, Christmas at Mbingo. It doesn’t feel like Christmas in
the typical, American sense. It’s 80 degrees, the Christmas carols have not
been going since Thanksgiving, I haven’t bought a single gift in the past
month. And yet there are a couple of things that remind me of “home” this
Christmas.

I asked Ben, the guy who works in most of the gardens around
here, if he could get me a couple sticks of evergreen off of one of the trees.
I was just going to stick them in a vase for my “Christmas tree”. But here came
Ben, dragging the entire top of an evergreen. Now it’s no Frasier Fir or Cedar,
in fact it has thorns all up and down the branches, but it is green and works
well for a Christmas tree look-alike. Since I’ve nothing to put it in (aka –
tree stand), I keep it propped up against the wall in an old oatmeal can to
keep its water in. I also have no ornaments or lights to decorate with. I considered
making a popcorn strand, but then thought that it may draw rodents. So, it is just a naked tree, but it stands (or leans as the case may be) as a reminder of Christmas to me.

The next thing is Christmas carols. They’ve been doing
carols in the chapel in the mornings, but I am always rounding during that time
and so have not been involved in that. However, last night the missionaries all
got together to sing. And this evening, the plan is to carol in the patient
wards. That is kind of fun.

Leg after leg coming out of that door - how many legs can a cow have?

But otherwise, Christmas celebrating is just a bit
different. Take feasting for instance, it happens all over the world, but this
is unlike any Christmas dinner preparation I have ever done. The first thing is
the Christmas slaughtering of cows. Some of the hospital cows are butchered and
sold. This meat is better than the ordinary beef you can find. Each ward sends
around a sign up sheet to tell how much meat you want and which cut (cut
meaning first cut, second cut, etc – not like you can order T-bones or
ribeyes). Then you go stand in line on your assigned day during the days before
Chrstmas. Everyone is gathered and pushing in on one another. They carry the very, very fresh
cut meat from the slaughter site over to the next door down, the selling site.
There are small piles of meat, with little papers saying who has ordered them. Turns out, you are supposed to bring your own bag. But how was I to
know this? So, they were gracious and squeezed a big bunch of meat into a tiny,
thin little bag for me. As I walked back toward the house, I cradled the meat
to keep the bag from breaking. The blood squished into my shirt.

Now that is fresh meat

Next animal to be killed was the pig. There’s no bacon for
sale in Cameroon. No one knows what bacon is. So, when they said they were
slaughtering a pig, I thought, “hey, that pigs gotta have some bacon part
somewhere on it”. So, I turned in my order, 2 kilograms of bacon. We looked up
a diagram of pork parts, and I had to show the man where the bacon part comes
from on a diagram. I am learning so much about livestock during all this
Christmas celebration.

Now the gross part of this picture is the pig head. The interesting thing is that the man who bought and is now carrying it is a doctor, complete with white coat and stethescope.

And lastly, the chicken. As tomorrow is Christmas Day, I am
the supplier of the main course for the missionary dinner. So, a chicken had to
die today. I have been wanting to learn to kill one. I mean, you can’t live in
Africa and be too wimpy to kill a chicken. So, I asked Ben (the above
tree-provider) if he would show me. He agreed. So this morning, we went to the
chicken coop, he rounded up a good fat one, and brought it out of the cage.
He showed me how you have to hold the feet under your one foot and the wings
under the other so that you can use your hands to slice the neck. As he held
the chicken down, he started to pray. I found this odd, wondering why in the
world he was praying, and wondering if it was for sure to the same God I knew
(I’ve seen chickens sacrificed in witchcraft before). So, a bit later I asked
him. “Why were you praying before we killed the chicken?” He replied with what
I thought was hilarious, “The same reason that you pray before you operate”.
That took my mind in a thousand funny places. I’m not hoping for a successful
kill with my patients, I’m actually praying for a good outcome. But it made
total sense to him. Anyhow, he helped hold the chicken, while I slit its
throat. He explained how you must keep holding it down after you kill it so
that it doesn’t sling blood all over the yard. I thought that was a good tip.
Then came the boiling water. You’ve gotta pour it on the chicken before
plucking it to make the feathers come out easily. Then pluck, and pluck, and
pluck. Rinse and pluck any small feathers you missed before. Then cut off the
head and feet, eviscerate it, and voila – just like a chicken that comes from
the grocery store!

Pluck, pluck, pluck

Ready for the oven

So, feasting is part of Christmas in both American and
Cameroonian culture. I may be missing out on eggnog and cheesecake and stuffed
mushrooms, but as a perk I’m eating the freshest, most hormone-free meat I think I’ve ever had. There are so
many differences all around the world in the way we celebrate. But no matter what the celebration looks
like, from near and far, we join as God’s children to celebrate His amazing
gift of Christ Jesus.